Von Sweikert VR2 vs. VR4 jr

[RGA]

I can speak to the silver in your discussion because Audio Note makes thesame speaker with copper and other versions with silver and with different cabinet materials. I'm not a cable supporter by the way and so I can;t tell you if the diifferences are due to silver or a combination of the wiring and crossovers etc.

The Audio Note J K and E models with an L after it are copper wired and perform typically better than the silver models with solid state amps. At least those SS amps in my sessions but bigger AN fans than me have more experience and also come to this conclusion. The E copper version for example sounded quite excellent on the Rotel RA02 a budget amp. The K/Spe(silver wired) however sounded rather spitty in the upper midrange and would be rather "bright" to me. Switching to one of Audio Note's amps and the K/spe that problem completely dissapeared. The E/L(copper) though didn't imporved too but seemed to lack a little sparkle (we still need some).

Your point about silver throughout is one of the reasons I'm not a cable supporter. It makes little sense to have different wiring from cd player to amp to speaker. I can;t speak for Von Sweikert but Audio Note makes all their own cables. And they tune everything by ear. Their level system (which is really tough to "believe" unless you've heard them in action advises that if you buy a level two speaker you should have the amp or cd player not be more than one level off. So in the case of the J/Spe (my speakers) they use the lowest level of silver wiring(spe) and ideally they would like you to buy the SPE speaker cable as well as SPE interconnect and the Meishu silver wired amplifier and the upper DAC which is also Silver wired. In lieu of budget their top of the line copper litz is one level down and is close to the lower end silver.

Few companies build the whole chain -- one of the amps Von Sweikert uses to tune their speakers and to listen to is from Audio Note -- so It's not too suprising that Von Sweikert if they are using silver wiring would want to use amplifiers and sources with silver wiring. Unlike Audio note of course they have to build their speakers to be more accomodating of many different amplifiers. Audio Note's fault if you can call it that is that they build their speakers with their amplifiers and their cd players and cables in mind and they have little interest in how SS reacts because they think, in their opinion, that SS is rubbish. So hooking up the Rotel and getting good results was not something recommended it was something my dealer has done to try and find a way to get a relatively inexpensive AN E system. I had good luck with a Sugden with my speakers. But MF? Ughh terrible match. Bryston forgettaboutit.

I would like to see my dealer Soundhounds acquire both Von Sweikert and Spendor.

Silver misused though has been ripped apart by many forumers and speaker makers -- and listening to the Silver K on the Rotel if that;s what they complain about then I understand and agree -- well matched and for whatever reason it makes a huge diffeence/improvement.

A fellow here got the dealer to re-wire his B&W Nautilus internal wires with Audio Note silver wiring and he claims it made a massive improvement -- I didn't hear em so I don't know.

[Jim Clark]

I can speak to the silver in your discussion because Audio Note makes thesame speaker with copper and other versions with silver and with different cabinet materials...

Don't worry, I'm not going to go all Mytrcraft on you. I guess I'm just more cynical than you. I personally don't believe for a second that silver sounds any different from copper or any other similarly conductive material. It is refreshing to know that AN at least makes up for the shortcomings of other claims by using the material throughout the chain but silver wire is the last thing I would look towards when trying to account for any difference in sound. Well, that's not entirely true. I'd consider power cords and outlets to be the absolute last thing I'd look towards, but that's just me.

For the record, I'm not a total skeptic. I don't believe all SS electronics sound the same (Amps and CDPS for example) and there are many others that would argue that point. Funny which of these things we cling to as truths.

jc